Within the past decades, advances in miniaturization from micro to nano-scale have had dramatic impacts on our lives. Consumer electronics, which once occupied large volumes, now fit in the palm of a hand. But nanotechnology does not only improve electronics. Also material sciences, chemical engineering or biology are strongly profiting from nanotechnology. The tremendous achievements in all of these areas would not have been possible without corresponding material analytics techniques. Material analytics for nano-scale characterization currently cover destructive methods, surface inspection methods or 2D methods. To date it is not possible to get a comprehensive representation of a specimen including internal and external 3D-structure analysis as well as a chemical analysis without destroying the sample. In this respect nano-scale material analytics is currently on the edge of a new era, which is targeted in NanoXCT. The project addresses the limitations of conventional techniques using 3D X-ray computed tomography, which allows for a non-destructive and fully three-dimensional characterization of specimens.